Of Nightmares, Night-Lights and Kept Promises
by Clair de Lune - CdL
Summary: He likes to keep his promises; he's a man who takes his word to heart. (Post-series, alternate canon.)


**Title: Of Nightmares, Night-Lights and Kept Promises  
Pairing: **Michael/Sara  
 **Timeline:** Post-series, alternate canon  
 **A/N:** A small ficlet written looong ago for MsGenevieve's birthday.

* * *

He likes to keep his promises; he's a man who takes his word to heart. But sometimes... you know, sometimes, it's just too hard, and he has to find another solution. Work his way around it.

o-o-o

She sits down at the edge of the mattress on Mikey's bed, brushes his short dark hair back and touches his cheek. Contacts. He needs them to anchor him back into the here and now after a nightmare. She asks if there was monsters in his dream, and if he defeated them. He says he did but that she should open his closet so that he can check. She recognizes Lincoln's touch; she wonders if advice about opening doors and facing monsters in order to crumble them into dust will live through generations of Burrows-Scofield-Tancredi children.

She thinks it's a sane policy. Facing whatever needs to be faced.

She reaches out for the door and snags it open. No monsters in there, except for a couple of ugly stuffed animals that Mikey loves more than reason – another example of Lincoln's touch.

She knows Michael is watching; he's lurking in the golden shadow of the hallway, right outside of Mikey's bedroom. In that situation, he always does. She can feel his eyes on her; on Mikey too, sure, but mainly on her. They stroke her legs and her back and burn her shoulders and the nape of her neck in the most pleasant way. He never steps inside the room. With the passing months and years, he's caught up on many things he'd missed, but this, the post-nightmare comfort, is hers alone.

Maybe because he still has too many nightmares of his own.

"Do you want the night-light on?" she asks Mikey.

He shakes his head no with determination and, you see, this is something he doesn't share with his Daddy. When Daddy wakes up in the dark because of a nightmare, he likes to keep a single dim light on.

o-o-o

Michael snakes an arm around her waist the second she passes the threshold of Mikey's bedroom. Her hands come up and briefly rest on his shoulders before sliding up and curling around the back of his head. She pulls him down for a kiss. It's a soft one, but he responds with slightly too much heat and eagerness for said kiss to remain nice and clean. He walks her backward towards their bedroom. In the process, he bumps her into a small console and apologizes profusely, all the while keeping up the kissing; and the petting too, his hands apparently graced with ubiquity: they seem to be on her hips, breasts, back, in her hair and under the waistband of her pajamas bottom at the same time.

"Do you want the night-light on?" she asks as they fall across their bed. She's half-joking, half-serious and one hundred percent wanting an answer.

He nods, and explains, "No nightmare. I just want to..." Her tank top is off and he's taking a step back and watching her with an awe that never gets old; maybe a bit embarrassing every now and then. But tonight, she lies back, stretches her arms above her head, shamelessly flaunts herself and grins.

o-o-o

"Weren't you supposed to be a hands-on dad and keep my spot in the bed warm when I have to get up in the middle of the night?" she says, her voice low and dripping with phony reproach.

The contrast between the still warm bed – no matter what she pretends – and the pleasantly cool air of the night is doing marvelous things on certain parts of her half-bare body. He comes closer, leans down, his fingers splayed on her hips, and her pajamas quickly join the discarded tank top at the foot of the bed.

"I'm working on warming it up again," he assures her. He settles between her legs and lays massive amounts of heat upon her. She arches up into it, her eyes wide open and trained on his face – and lower too, by the way. "I'm a man who takes his word to heart."

END


End file.
